I welcome the opportunity to comment briefly on Loewen & Gass's Research Timeline: The use of statistics in L2 acquisition research (Language Teaching 42.2). Having attempted a similar historical overview in the past, I fully understand the complexity of this task. The numerous and comprehensive research citations the authors provide should prove very useful for those who want to read more about statistics in SLA research.

What I find peculiar about the piece is its objective, uncritical stance towards the use of statistics in SLA. The authors provide evidence of the increased quantity and complexity of statistical SLA research and rightly point out calls in the field for more rigour in their use. But what seems equally, if not more, important would be evidence that SLA researchers are, in fact, using statistical procedures more appropriately. It is unclear how reading the books or articles that the authors include moves us any closer to the goal of judicious and careful use of appropriate statistical procedures. In other words, just because more books are published about statistics or more SLA articles use statistics does not mean that we should be headed in that direction. A broader contextualization of the SLA research endeavor and a fuller consideration of how statistical research, and yes, non-statistical, qualitative SLA research helps us move closer to the larger goals of the field would be quite welcome.

A newly published article by Benson et al. (Reference Benson, Chik, Gao, Huang and Wang2009) drives this point home. Their analysis of over 2200 published empirical articles in ten applied linguistics journals from 1997–2006 found that 22% (477/2202) were qualitative studies. Interestingly, the lowest percentages were found in Language Learning (17/215, 8%) and Studies in Second Language Acquisition (9/199, 5%), two of the three journals Gass & Loewen cite as the basis for claims about increased use and complexity. Benson et al. note that the increasing prominence of qualitative research in applied linguistics journals ‘may therefore be a sign not only of greater methodological openness but also of an increased awareness of the potential contributions of other disciplines within and beyond applied linguistics’, disciplines which tolerate, even embrace, qualitative research. ‘Two of the journals surveyed, Language Learning and Studies in Second Language Acquisition, appear to be resistant to this process’ although they point out that ‘it may be that the relative absence of qualitative research in their pages has more to do with the maintenance of a narrow cognitive view of language teaching and learning as an object of inquiry than it has to do with fixed methodological preferences’ (all three quotations from page 89).

In fact, it may be worth stepping back even farther, to contemplate the implicit and explicit values that are inherent in research guidelines themselves. Shohamy (Reference Shohamy2004) wonders whether such guidelines ‘restrict inquiry by framing it within static, imposed categories’ and overlook ‘issues of morality, ethics, and responsibility . . . Research is more complex than any set of guidelines can ever be. It has ethical, social, and political ramifications that must be addressed’ (p. 730). I could not agree more.